


Light and True

by PromisesArePieCrust



Category: Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries
Genre: F/M, First Dates, MFMM Year of Tropes, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-05
Updated: 2017-05-05
Packaged: 2018-10-28 10:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10829088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PromisesArePieCrust/pseuds/PromisesArePieCrust
Summary: A vignette from the Chicago AU (City that Works) for the Body Swap/Role Reversal trope challenge!





	Light and True

**Author's Note:**

> “Launch at 80%” is the adage. This is closer to 40%, but perfectionism is not one of my bugaboos. ;-) This is an AU to the AU, outside of the City that Works narrative. A second (smuttier?) chapter awaits when I have regular internet access. Kisses!

The bar was deafening, and Phryne nearly turned around as soon as she stepped in. She was not above the cheer of a Friday night, but she was feeling tense and thought she might need to work up to this level of enthusiasm—not in order to meet it herself, she’d leave that to Jack, but just to be in proximity of it. 

 

The bar itself was not off-putting, a cleverly decorated, small space not too far from her neighborhood. She’d meant to visit it when in opened, but still hadn’t, and now wondered idly how Jack had heard of it, and why he might have suggested it, since it was so far from his neighbourhood and not especially trendy or noteworthy. She also thought about why she had agreed to meet him tonight. It didn’t seem it was for a case. The sense she got was that this was new territory for them, though the clues were tenuous. It was perhaps by the way he had made the invitation— his slight nervousness when he asked, his offer to pick her up. She looked at her watch and realized she was nearly 25 minutes early, which made her take pause. It was then that it became clear to her that she was _really_ excited about this evening, possibly too excited, and she suddenly felt embarrassed and a little foolish. 

“What do you want?” she heard from across the bar, seeming to peek into her inner monologue and the heart of her question to herself. Did she want to date Jack? She was attracted to him, unquestionably, but did she want the sort of risk involved in dating him? And what were those risks, exactly? She hesitated, the bartender’s question shaking some things loose, and gave him a tight smile as she looked at the chalkboard menu above the bar.

“The stout, please.”

She watched him pour from the tap, mesmerized by the dark beer filling the glass, and struggled to assess once more why she was here.

She took the drink and turned away from the bar, grateful to see that the manager was opening the large windowed doors to a patio space. It was perhaps an over-confident move, as the early-May weather was still iffy, but the day had reached the 70s, and, as the sun began to set, it was still relatively warm. The bigger advantage was that the crowd sounded only like a muffled roar from out there, so she made her way to a small table outside to drink her beer in relative quiet and watch for Jack. 

She heard the sounds of instruments tuning and a mic check, and noticed, for the first time, a small stage in a distant corner. She sat and sipped and watched them setting up, guessing from the presence of the huge upright bass that it was a jazz combo. Possibly this was why Jack suggested this place? She considered this as she watched the vocalist come on the stage to talk to the pianist. She was a stunning woman, dressed as though she were performing for a much larger, much classier venue. She also seemed anachronistic, with the grace, movements and small, practiced smile of a different era. Phryne was lost in reverie observing her, when she became aware of a torso moving into her direct line of sight; she looked up and smiled slightly, holding a little back, as was her habit. “Hello, Jack.” 

The smile that greeted her in return was full and brilliant, and she felt a little stingy by comparison. He was so generous with his warmth. “Hello, Phryne.”

“I’ll just grab a drink. Do you want an appetizer?”

He turned to walk inside and to the bar, and she watched him, both how he moved and how other people watched and responded to him. He moved through a crowd like a slow-moving, highly-visible electric current that made people want to take notice. It was amusing to her in part because she, by contrast, felt as though she could unobtrusively slip through a crowd. It wasn’t self-deprecation. She knew her appeal, in fact had very strong evidence of her appeal, and felt confident in it. It was simply that the currents around her were somehow tighter and more intense; it was that people got close to her and _then_ were more interested, while the currents around him were broad and inviting, and nearly irresistible from the start. 

And, of course, she now watched how he responded to this attention, the flirtation that seemed integral to his interactions. She mentally rolled her eyes as the women at the bar pulled him into conversation. She released her annoyance quickly, or tried to—she obviously had no hold or claim on Jack, but she still felt a slight ache to see him open and engaged with other women. 

His flirtations were not meant to make her feel competitive, she felt sure, nor was it a show he was putting on. She puzzled over this for a while. He was the only person she knew like this, someone with a seemingly boundless affection that was both deep and true but also light and easily shifted. And she did believe that he felt _actual_ affection for the people around him. 

As he waited for his drink, the other-worldly, anachronistic vocalist lit up and stood on her toes, raising her hand in a friendly greeting. So, there was the answer to Phryne’s question on why he’d chosen this place. She felt both a little smug for guessing correctly, and now, as she watched how they greeted each other with very slow busses on cheeks, a little more uneasy. Perhaps she really had misinterpreted Jack’s invitation, and this was a friendly, not romantic, evening for Jack and herself; perhaps he was here for the vocalist. She looked away and adjusted her necklace, blushing a little as she thought about the effort she’d put into her dress tonight. But when she looked back at him, he was saying goodbye to the singer, and his body language was that of a friend, not of an intimate or an expected intimate. He turned again in Phryne’s direction, smiling in a way that sent something ricocheting around inside of her, and she mulled over her earlier thought, that Jack’s warmth and affection was both light and true. 

He returned to the table with his drink and the appetizer. “We went to high school together,” he began, and spoke about her early talent and how she was mostly in LA, and continued speaking, though Phryne was off on another thought that made it hard to listen to him. ‘Light and true,’ she mused. She knew she could work with ‘true’; but could she work with ‘light’? Was it only possible for it to be light?

She thought suddenly of her nephews and nieces, and how easily they swing between an absolute devotion to one emotion one moment—anger, tears, or giggles— to an equally true, different, strong emotion the next. True feelings which pivoted easily, as she observed in Jack. She never doubted his sincerity; he would always move with the truth of his feelings, which both amazed her and frightened her. And the current of those feelings was abrupt, maybe rough. Perhaps this was where the undefined risk she was considering earlier lay in dating Jack Robinson. 

“Are you ok, Officer Fisher?” he woke her from her mental tangent. She smiled at his formality and adjusted herself in her seat. “Quite well, Mr. Robinson,” she returned with a smile and a sip of her drink. “Thinking again,” he assessed as he sipped his drink in turn. “Thinking is not a liability,” she said smoothly. He gave a sideways nod of half-agreement. “Nor is it always an asset,” he returned.

She watched him, the breeze picking up his hair, the very last bit of sunlight hitting the angles of his face. It was possible that her drink that had made her face begin to tingle, but it was more likely not. It was more likely just him. She sat, unmoving for several more moments, taking him in. He smiled slowly as an acknowledgement of her gaze, then put his drink on the table and gave her a soft gaze of his own. They let themselves linger in that tension a while, a slow happiness blooming in her chest at their mutual admiration.

The jazz trio finished a song, her only awareness of it because audience whooped and whistled, which pulled her from their moment. After a few more moments, the vocalist snapped her fingers to a much slower rhythm, and the musicians came in with a very slow, achy-sounding number. Drinks were laid on cocktail tables and bar, and slow, comfortable shuffling began around the bar and patio. Phryne hesitated, then stood slowly, and Jack’s eyes followed her as she moved toward him. He stood to meet her and their hands slid together. 

She’d never held his hand before, which seemed funny. There’d been the decoy kissing that they hadn’t really touched on again but for a brief conversation. And there was the brief moment of comfort and intimacy when they’d discovered his sister. But this was the most intimate they’d been, her hand in his as they slowly walked to an open space on the floor. Her heart rate sped up, but it was in opposition to the rest of her perception of the world, which now moved in a muffled, sluggish way. Arms to shoulder and neck, palms resting lightly on hips. She held her breath and watched his lips, which maybe felt safer than his eyes at the moment, but were not all that safe at all. She swallowed and released her breath. One of her hands slid down his chest a little. “You look beautiful,” he whispered, and she noticed the small catch in his speech. She waited before she responded. “I’m glad you invited me,” she breathed.


End file.
